Cons

Overall

A solid platform for artists looking to make some additional spending money.

If you’re a painter, drawer, doodler, or any other type of visual artist, you could very well have an interest in the website known as Society6.

This website is a decent platform for those who are trying to make money from their artistic creations.

Society6 sells a bevy of different products, from phone cases, to t-shirts, to pillow cases, and much more. To make these products unique, they adorn them with the drawings, paintings, or doodles supplied by the artists who work with them.

But Society6 itself does not automatically adorn products with drawings and designs. They allow their customers to do that themselves.

What the website does is provide its customers with an entire database of different designs. Once they have reached the website, customers have their choice of designs from the thousands of different artists who submit to Society6. They can choose to have these designs printed on a phone case, a t-shirt, or whatever else it is that they’re looking for.

As an artist who works with Society6, you will receive a cut of the pay every time your design is used on a product. While you more than likely won’t make an entire career out of selling your art on Society6, you can snag a decent amount of money if you do things the right way.

What Type of Art Can Be Sold on Society6?

After you’ve created an account on the website, you can immediately start selling your art. Just about any type of art is allowed, provided that it meets the guideline set forth by Society6.

It’s recommended that the file in which you submit your art is at least 6500px X 6500px. However, you should note that this figure is only the standard for items which are most typically sold. These items include shirts, throw pillows, mugs, wall clocks, and much more.

If you’re looking to have your art printed on other products, you’ll have to send your art in sizes which these products can accommodate. Items which have a strict size guideline include phone cases, rugs, bath mats, and more. Exact specifications for these products can be found here.

Again, just about all types of art can be submitted to the website. It doesn’t matter whether it’s hand-drawn or created in a design program such as Adobe Illustrator. In addition, you can also submit word art.

You should, however, keep licensing agreements in mind. Some pieces of art may intrude on a company’s intellectual property rights. Of course, if this is the case, Society6 itself will turn down your submission. You typically won’t be held legally liable for submitting something that intrudes on an existing licensing agreement.

In essence, Society6 is open to creators of all kinds of art. If you draw, doodle, paint, or digitally illustrate, you can capitalize on Society6.

How Do You Upload Your Art to Society6?

Uploading art to Society6 is a fairly simple process overall. All you have to do is pay close attention to the supplied guidelines and adhere to them strictly.

Different types of image files are required for different types of products. So, if you’re looking to have your art printed on a t-shirt, you can submit either a PNG or a JPG file. If you’re looking to have your art printed on a phone case, you’re only allowed to submit it in a JPG file.

There are also, of course, size requirements which you must meet. In some cases, you’ll be given a range which your images must fall between. In other cases, you’ll be required to submit images at an exact size.

The important thing is to follow the guidelines exactly. Doing so will ensure that your artwork shows up in your online storefront immediately. The sooner that it’s in your storefront, the sooner prospective buyers can browse it and choose it for their products.

In summary, if you follow the guidelines carefully, the uploading process for Society6 is quick and easy. You can quite literally have your art up on the website and available for purchase within the hour.

How Does Pricing Work on Society6?

When it comes to pricing, Society6 possesses quite a bit of variation. The amount of money you’ll make for your art is entirely dependent on what type of product it’s printed on. Typically, smaller items yield less payout than do large items.

In most cases, Society6 will determine how much you can make for the sale of a given item. However, for art prints, you can choose your own price. Art prints are sold as bare art prints, framed art prints, and stretch canvases. You can decide a separate price for each type of print.

As was mentioned above, Society6 sets the price for every other type of product that they sell. Typically, the highest amount of money you’ll get for one sale is if your art is made into a metal print. This will yield around $16 at the most.

On the other hand, the lowest amount of money you’ll receive for a single sale of your art is if your art is used on a mug. Having your art printed on a mug will typically yield around $1.50.

There are tons of products in between these two products, all of which have their own set price constituted by Society6.

How Much Money Can You Make on Society6?

You’re probably wondering how much money you can realistically make by selling your art on Society6. Well, that depends on quite a few factors. Everything from promotion, to the quantity of art pieces in your storefront, to the type of product your art is printed on will affect your overall royalties.

Those who only submit art to Society6 on occasion will usually only generate tens of dollars a month. Those who submit on a regular basis, but who do a poor job of promoting can usually bring in a couple hundred dollars a month.

Meanwhile, those who submit regularly, and who do a good job of promoting their work can make $1,000 or more a month. It should, however, be pointed out that these people are the exception.

On Society6, your artwork is competing with the artwork of many other artists. It needs to not only stand out among these other art pieces, but outnumber them as well. Essentially, you need to regularly submit a great deal of high-quality artwork in order yield as much payout as possible.

In all likelihood, you won’t make a living by selling your artwork on Society6. But you can, at the very least, rake in some decent spending money.

How Do You Get Your Work Noticed on Society6?

As was just mentioned above, if you want to make money on Society6, your work needs to stand out from the rest. Submitting a great deal of high-quality artwork will help you in this department, but will only get you so far. To make your art as recognizable as possible, promotion is necessary.

There isn’t a set rule as to how you should promote your artwork, but there are quite a few tips out there to help you get things underway. Ideally, you will promote your art on a number of different fronts.

In this day and age, your primary promotion tool for artwork is social media. Twitter, Facebook, and a variety of other social media platforms will allow you to expose your artwork to both acquaintances and strangers. You can build a following by sharing your artwork, and by interacting with your followers often.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that you should abandon physical, in-person promotion. Try to get your art displayed at art galleries. See if you can get bands to use on on their album covers or promotional flyers.

The point is to get your art out there and expose it to as many people as possible. Promotion is a slow process, but a valuable one in the long run.

Is Putting Your Art on Society6 Worth It?

If you’re thinking about putting your art on Society6, the wisest option is to just go for it. If it doesn’t sell, the only thing you’ll be out on is a bit of time. There’s essentially no reason not to submit it.

Plus, when you submit your artwork to Society6, you still retain full rights to it. This means that you can continue to use it on other platforms such as Threadless. You won’t have to worry about intellectual property violations.

You may be able to make more money on other such sites, but you never really know where your artwork might get noticed. Some people only browse specific websites, and may never have the chance to come into contact with your artwork. Putting it on a number of different websites gives you more exposure overall.

Overall, Society6 is a solid website for those artists who are trying to make some spending money. Again, you likely won’t make a career out of selling on Society6, but it can be a decent source of additional income.

Added: Check out this really good article by Katita Miller where she interviews several artists who have had some success selling their art online. Find out what’s working and what’s not. Great for beginners thinking of entering this competitive field.

About Brett

Brett Gordon is the owner of DMAD and has been writing for the web for over 10 years. He is passionate about design, Wordpress, travel, language learning, fine dining, and online marketing.
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About DMAD

I write about technology that interests me. I review products, cover web development, design, and WordPress, as well as tools and apps that make my life easier. I track the latest deals on broadband services like Verizon Fios. Occasionally I share something from my travel experiences and interesting aspects of being an online entrepreneur.